


if you give a girl an ukulele

by MaryPSue



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:39:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23522440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: He left her flowers, and razor-edged words. Until the end, he never cut her with them, only left them in easy reach....The modern world offers options for girls looking to sing about their madness.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	if you give a girl an ukulele

**Author's Note:**

> More old stuff crossposted from tumblr. Yes, I did go through an extremely brief phase of writing a lot of self-indulgent Ophelia-centric stuff, how could you possibly have guessed.

Ophelia plays the ukelele.

She picked it up after her boyfriend dumped her, after she discovered something called ‘punk cabaret’. Someone pounding on a piano and screaming speaks to her, she thinks, someone onstage in her underclothes, hair messy and the mind underneath it too. Someone unafraid to spill her madness out in song, in screaming rhythmic rage with music underneath it.

Ophelia goes to art galleries, with her scuffed sneakers untied and trailing laces, staring up at the Old Masters and the decontextualized modern sculptures, reading every little plaque. Maybe if she knows enough about its history, the art will speak its secrets to her. She reads reams of fine print that strain her eyes, but the statues never breathe, the red-haired women in the paintings stay frozen in their unnatural poses. They only turn their eyes to follow her as she passes, silent and pleading.

Ophelia lies in bed past 2 pm, watching the sun crawl from under the drawn blinds, across the crumpled sheets and dirty dishes and heaps of laundry. The same song’s been on repeat since last night, last week. She can’t remember what it’s like to not feel tired.

He left her flowers, and razor-edged words. Until the end, he never cut her with them, only left them in easy reach.

Ophelia drowns in her bed. Ophelia writes flowers into songs like razors, songs that cut the strings of her ukelele every time she tries to play them.

Her voice is still faltering, still tender. Her voice is still inaudible under the weight of pain and uncertainty and water. But the songs have words that line up with the jagged edges in her chest and rub the old razor-wounds raw, stitch through her scars with bright embroidery thread and string her back together, pluck her by the hair from the riverbed. It hurts, but it’s a hurt that feels like healing. It’s a scarlet scream that says _I am mad, and this whole damn world is too_.

Ophelia writes angry songs about her no-good sonofabitch ex-boyfriend, and tapes a photo of Amanda Palmer above her bed like a crucifix, and plays the ukelele.


End file.
